A Comparative Taxonomy of Errors Made by Iranian Undergraduate Learners of English

Reza Kafipour, Laleh Khojasteh

Abstract

This study tried to identify and investigate errors made by Persian learners of English according to comparative taxonomy which categorizes errors based on the source of errors such as interlingual, developmental, ambiguous and other errors. To conduct this study, 40 Persian learners of English were selected according to their Grade Point Average from Shiraz Azad University. Elicitation test was used for data collection. Writings of the students were analyzed and the errors were extracted and categorized based on comparative taxonomy. The results showed that the majority of the errors can be attributed to developmental, other, ambiguous and interlingual errors respectively. It proved that majority of errors were those which are common among native speakers of English and foreign leaners of English. Interlingual errors constitute the lowest number of errors. This finding rejected positive transfer from Persian learner’s mother tongue, Farsi.